Trivia

In an interview with Piers Morgan, former American President Jimmy Carter said that he believes the film was a "great drama" and it deserved to win an Oscar for best film. However, Carter noted that although "90 per cent of the contributions to the ideas and the consummation of the plan was Canadian," the film "gives almost full credit to the American CIA. With that exception, the movie's very good," Carter said, but "the main hero, in my opinion, was Ken Taylor, who was the Canadian ambassador who orchestrated the entire process."

According to Tony Mendez, the fake production office known as Studio Six was so convincing in the real-life Argo plan that even several weeks after it folded and the Iranian rescue was complete, "we had received twenty-six scripts. One was from Steven Spielberg."

Ben Affleck has stated that the production was granted unprecedented access to the CIA's actual headquarters, both for interiors and exteriors, and that the gratitude for that privilege belongs to Tony Mendez, the retired C.I.A. officer portrayed by Affleck in the film.

In order to make the movie feel like the 1970s, Ben Affleck shot it on regular film, cut the frames in half, and blew those images up 200% to increase their graininess. He also copied camera movements and bustling office scenes from All the President's Men (1976) for sequences depicting CIA headquarters; for L.A. exteriors, he borrowed from The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976).

In the movie, it was stated that both the British and New Zealand embassies in Tehran turned away the six American diplomats, leaving the Canadians as their only refuge. In fact the British embassy did shelter the six for a few days but it was agreed by everyone that the Canadian embassy would be more secure and suitable, so they moved. A New Zealand official transported them and the British also helped other Americans trapped in the country at the time. Director Ben Affleck acknowledged that he intentionally deviated from the real events in order to quicken the pace and build up the tension.

Ben Affleck was criticized by some viewers for casting himself (a European-American) as Tony Mendez and not a Latino/Hispanic actor. Mendez (who is half-Mexican, half-European) however said he had "no problem" with being portrayed by Affleck, and approved of his performance.

Affleck, a longtime Led Zeppelin fan admits he was desperate to use the track "When the Levee Breaks" (from "Led Zeppelin IV") and vigorously pursued the rockers to win permission, but they asked him to make a very specific change. The scene was originally shot with actor Tate Donovan placing the record needle on the beginning of the album, which was wrong: "When the Levee Breaks" is actually the last song on the second side of the album. Affleck agreed to make the change and he headed back to the editing suit in order to make the band happy. He later told the Los Angeles Times he appreciated the band's attention to detail, despite having to pay for another shoot.

As shown in this movie, by the late 1970s, the Hollywood sign (which had first been erected in 1923 as "HOLLYWOODLAND" to advertise an upcoming real estate development) had fallen into severe disrepair. In 1978, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce had a fund-raising campaign in which they solicited nine prominent people to give about $28,000.00 each (one donor for each letter) for the restoration. Some of these benefactors included: Playboy Magazine founder Hugh Hefner, who gave the Y; singers Gene Autry and Andy Williams (the second L and the W, respectively), and heavy metal/shock rock star Alice Cooper, who replaced the third O (by far the most damaged of the letters) in memory of Groucho Marx. Warner Bros. Records, a division of the company that later released Argo, donated the second O. However, this restoration was completed before the events depicted in this movie started.

The script originally began by jumping directly into the protests outside the U.S. Embassy. However, Ben Affleck and Chris Terrio did not want the film to simply be a portrayal of irrationally crazy Middle Easterners; the opening credits/prologue, which details how the U.S. helped install the Shah in power and the Shah's subsequent corruption and brutality, was created so as to make the anger after the Iranian Revolution understandable while not supporting the grossly illegal and immoral hostage-taking at the embassy.

In keeping with the period in which the film is set (around 1979), Warner Bros. used their "Big W" logo, which was utilized on their releases around that time, and painted the Burbank Studios logo onto their water tower. It was the name of the building from 1972 until 1990, when Warners and Columbia Pictures were sharing the same facilities.

During one of the many promotions for this film Alan Arkin didn't realize that Bryan Cranston was in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), surprisingly quoting "Get out of here. I had no idea!". This was due to the fact that both actors didn't share scenes together (just like in Argo (2012)).

Comic book artist Jim Lee owns some of the storyboards from the fake film. He stated on Twitter when this film was released that he had no idea they had been used in the mission, he only bought them being a fan of Jack Kirby.

The script used for the fake film project was based on the 1967 science fiction novel "Lord of Light" by Roger Zelazny. In real life, makeup artist John Chambers (played by John Goodman) came up with the title "Argo" because he loved knock-knock jokes. In the film, the title becomes an off-color joke.

The stock footage of the Iranian-American getting attacked by angry American protesters was filmed in front of the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. The read-through of the fake "Argo" film occurred in the very same hotel.

The character of Jack Kirby (played by Michael Parks), shown briefly as the artist of the storyboards for the fake movie, was a pioneer of the American comic book industry and a co-creator of such seminal comic book characters as Captain America, Iron Man, The Hulk, the Silver Surfer, and the teams known as The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and The X-Men. Kirby did indeed create storyboards for the adaptation of Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light, which were used as "proof" of the movie production during the real-life "Canadian Caper."

While John Chambers, Tony Mendez, and Lester Siegel are trying to figure out how to make their fake movie project look plausible, Siegel recalls that he made a movie once with Rock Hudson, and from that draws the conclusion that if you want people to believe a lie, you should have the media disseminate it for you. This seeming "non sequitur" is a reference to the fact that Hudson, one of the biggest Hollywood stars and sex symbols of the 1950s, was secretly gay, and his agent, Henry Wilson, actively fed misinformation about Hudson's "girlfriends" (really studio-arranged dates for publicity only) to the mainstream media. When the gossip tabloid "Confidential" threatened to expose Hudson's homosexuality, Wilson instead fed them scandalous information about two of the less-famous stars on his roster (Rory Calhoun and Tab Hunter) and arranged a sham marriage between his secretary and Hudson. Hudson's homosexuality was not widely known outside of Hollywood until his death in 1985.

First movie in 7 years to win the Oscar for Best Motion Picture without winning the Oscar for Best Director (the previous movie was Crash (2004)). It is also the first movie in 23 years to win the Oscar for Best Motion Picture without being nominated for Best Director (the previous one was Driving Miss Daisy (1989)).

John Goodman appeared in two consecutive Oscar-winning Best Pictures: The Artist (2011) and Argo (2012). In both films he portrayed a Hollywood character, a producer in The Artist (2011) and a makeup artist in Argo (2012).

The main person who pushed the story to be published was the former CIA director George Tenet (tenure 1997-2004). While the story was never published because of bureaucracy and the yet-to-be-concluded Iran hostage crisis, it was only when Tenet assumed the directorship of the CIA, and in conjunction with the agency's 50th anniversary, that he persuaded Tony Mendez to write his account and memoir of the mission.

The film has enjoyed great success in bootleg format in Iran where the full facts of the "Canadian caper" have never been made public. (This is not to say that the film is a fully balanced account of the event, as it has attracted criticism for its rather one-sided portrayal of the Iranian people.)

Lester Siegel (played by Alan Arkin) is said to be a composite character. However, in real life, the make-up artist Robert Sidell, a friend of John Chambers, posed as the fake film's producer. Sidell's wife, Andi, was the fake production company's receptionist. Ben Affleck assumed that Sidell, like Chambers, had passed away, but he was informed just before the film's release that he was still alive and well. Affleck had Robert Sidell flown to the film's premiere in Los Angeles, and in his opening remarks, he gave recognition to Sidell for his part in the mission.

Ben Affleck met the former CIA operative Tony Mendez for the first time in March 2011 to discuss his role. The meeting took place at the Washington, D.C., Chadwicks Bar on K Street where the infamous spy Aldrich Ames had passed classified American documents to the KGB. In the movie, however, the initial meeting place where the pivotal scheme was hatched was staged at the Smoke House restaurant in Burbank, California, a real-life haunt for many movie celebrities. George Clooney and Grant Heslov's company, SmokeHouse Productions, is named for this restaurant.

Alan Arkin has admitted that, although his Lester Siegel is a composite character, he based his character essentially on the late movie mogul Jack L. Warner who died shortly before the actual hostage crisis.

The rifles carried by the Iranian revolutionary guards in the movie are accurately selected fixed-stock G3-A4, a variant of German H-K G3 rifles manufactured locally in Iran by the country's Defense Industries Organization. The movie producers obviously resisted the temptation to use the easy-to-find AK-47 rifles, which were indeed used by the Iran's revolutionary guards, but only a couple of years after the hostage crisis, during the war with Iraq.

The fake film poster created for the real Argo mission was rather plain and black-and-white. In the movie, it is briefly visible in the background before the script reading event is held for the press. In the same scene, the colorful fake poster used in the movie is briefly visible, too.

When the guard is sitting at his desk looking at the copy of Variety, pictures of two films released from 1979 are seen-Rocky II and Kramer vs. Kramer. Rocky II and Argo were both directed by the star of the film (Sylvester Stallone and Ben Affleck, respectively). Kramer vs. Kramer won Best Picture in 1979, Argo would win Best Picture in 2012.

In the film, Tony Mendez hits upon the idea of the fake movie while watching Battle for the Planet of the Apes with his son. John Chambers, who is played by John Goodman, designed the make up for the original Planet of the Apes, earning an honorary Oscar for his work.

Actor Scoot McNairy (Joe Stafford) and actress Kerry Bishé (Kathy Stafford) play characters that are a husband and wife in the 1980's. In the TV show Halt and Catch Fire (2014) - McNairy and Kerry Bishé also play a married couple in the 1980's.

Spoilers

The trivia items below may give away important plot points.

The dramatic flight from the airport with a last-minute chase by the Republican Guard is entirely fictional. In reality, the diplomats showed up for their flight with pre-booked tickets and had no trouble boarding their plane. As the flight was at 5:30am, there were no Republican Guards on duty - even they were not that zealous for the cause.

When the film was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, the film drew criticism that it unfairly minimized the Canadian government's role in the rescues. The director Ben Affleck agreed, and he rewrote the postscript text that states that the CIA's operations complemented the Government of Canada's efforts, and the mission has become an admirable example of international cooperation.